High Hearts (45 page)

“Thank you, Banjo.”

Banjo fell alongside Geneva. The gossip started again, as inevitably as the sea returning at high tide. Wells thought, it’s a terrible death to be talked to death.

Geneva noticed that two squadrons detached themselves from the main body when they halted at Wynne’s Shop and Hopewell Church. While watering Gallant, Geneva inquired about the squadrons. She was informed that Garlick’s Landing by the Pamunkey River was two miles east. Supplies and horses were supposed to be there, and Stuart aimed to have some. Peeved, Geneva mounted up. Why was everyone else getting to have the fun?

As they moved toward the railroad station, Geneva encountered overturned wagons, their goods spilling out along the road. The Yankees were running from them fast and light. A sack of potatoes beckoned her but she sighed, kept in line, and beat back dreams of richly scalloped potatoes, cut thin and swimming in cream sauce. Ernie June slowly acquired the proportions of a saint.

Great plantations, many of them founded long before the Revolutionary War, invested this part of Virginia with special significance. In these rolling lands, washed over by the Atlantic Ocean millions of years back, and today laced with rivers, the English began the slow, brave, and oftimes cruel process of cultivating the New World. Henley’s people began here in
the mid-seventeenth century. One bold, dissatisfied Chatfield struck out from the Tidewater and headed for the bloody frontier, the Blue Ridge Mountains. He found the site for Chatfield, traded with Indians, fought when he had to, and eventually found a woman to share his hardships and triumphs.

The ladies of these hallowed plantations reposed in open carriages where their private road cut into the road to Tunstall. Parasols swaying, they waved, carried out food and drink, and even pressed scented handkerchiefs into the hands of those considered handsome. Their servants perched on the fences and shouted out encouragements to the troopers.

As Mars rode back to his men, he was particularly favored by a dark-haired beauty. He politely chatted with her and eventually his men caught up with him. He bid farewell to the lady and joined Sam Wells.

“Oh, Colonel, you are just the handsomest man in the Confederate States of America. I do think I may faint from the sight of you.” Geneva waved her hand over her nose, imitating a lady taking the vapors.

Mars laughed, then spoke to his regulars. “Well, boys, we’re going to ride around them! We aren’t turning back!”

“Holy shit!” Sam exclaimed. “Excuse me, sir.”

“I don’t mind but if Stuart hears you, he’ll give you a speech about temperance and the Methodist Church, it’s worth leaving off creative abuse to be spared.”

The sky turned velvet cobalt blue, the color of Kate Vickers’s eyes. Another detachment under Captain O.M. Knight separated itself from the column. Von Borcke, John Mosby, and a detail surged ahead to Tunstall’s Station. Geneva wondered if the enemy squared off along the road. If they did, there wasn’t much choice but to try and flank them or bull straight through. Exasperated that she was lodged in the main column and not with the squadron sent to Garlick’s Landing or with the advance party to Tunstall Station, Geneva became sullen.

“Halt!” Mars ordered.

The column of tired men and horses lurched to a stop. Another ripple passed from the head of the column to the back. “Bring the guns up.”

A ripple passed from the rear to the front. “The guns are stuck.”

They waited.

Finally Lieutenant Breathed put a keg on the gun and told
the men they could have it, if only they would pull. They pulled the guns through the mud and were rewarded with a whiskey keg captured at Old Church earlier in the day.

Frayser, one of the scouts who lived but a few miles from the road, dashed in from the direction of Tunstall’s Station and reported to Mars. Moonlight now flooded the fields, and the young cornstalks shone like small, silver spears.

“Form platoons!” Mars impatiently hollered. “Draw sabers! We’re going in!”

Geneva heard the head of the column break into a gallop. Within minutes Gallant, excited by the sounds of hoofbeats running, happily shot forward.

They roared into Tunstall’s Station. Nothing. The advance guard had scattered the Federals.

Mars let his saber fall to his side and spat on the ground. “Unbelievable! If I were Abraham Lincoln, I’d court-martial every son of a bitch over the rank of major in this army! Look at this!”

The station, a ripe plum, was virtually undefended. The two Yankee companies assigned to defend Tunstall Station had made no effort to secure the town. Mars wondered how the Yankees could ignore the fact that the railroad was their lifeline to supplies and to Washington itself. Did they think their opponents would be as lax as themselves? It seemed McClellan’s idea of a campaign was for an occasional shelling in the direction of Richmond or up in the air to give the gunners practice.

“Look up there.” Banjo pointed to Lieutenant Robins dangling atop a telegraph pole cutting the wires.

“All right. Dismount. Put the horses where they can graze.”

Men began to chop down poles and drag them on the tracks. Mars yanked off his tunic and removed his shirt. Barechested, he lit into a telegraph pole. Banjo and Geneva grabbed axes and did the same. While they were sweating away, about eight men pulled a fourteen-foot-long oak sill across the tracks.

“Heads up!” Mars cupped his hand to his mouth.

The telegraph pole crashed across the track. Within seconds, Banjo’s pole fell and then Geneva’s also.

A train whistle sang its piercing, eerie song. It was about quarter to eleven.

“Colonel, should I fetch the horses?” Geneva asked.

“No, enough of the men are in the saddle. If it gets thick and we have to make a run for it, we’ll take our chances. Come with me, Chatfield. Let’s roll this baggage cart alongside the track and turn it over. We can fire from behind it.”

They ran, their legs rubbery from eighteen hours in the saddle.

“Take the front and guide. I’ll push the rear,” Mars shouted.

Geneva and Mars pushed and pulled the cart away from the station, then with help from Banjo and Sam, they turned it on its side. Using a second cart, they created a small barricade about two hundred yards behind the obstruction on the track.

“Here she comes!” Mars pulled his gun.

The train slowed, then ripped forward at full speed as the engineer saw the ambush ahead. There were flatcars and a wood car behind the engine. The men on these cars shouted as they were jolted forward.

Geneva dumped lead into the men on the flatcars as they sped past. A few couldn’t fathom what was happening to them, and they stood straight up in the moonlight. Most of them, upon hearing the shots, wisely dropped flat on their stomachs. Others jumped off, screaming as they hit the tracks.

“Look at Will Farley!” Sam Wells pointed to his right.

Will Farley, a young man known for his almost insane disregard for danger, was galloping next to the engine. He put a rifle to his shoulder and fired into the cab. “I got him! I got him!” Farley yelled, waving the rifle over his head. The train pulled away.

Mars rose. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”

They walked along the tracks. Several Yankees were crumpled on the sidings or crawling to get away from them. Geneva easily caught up with one whose legs were broken. He rolled over and pulled his pistol, but she shot him. He twitched and then relaxed. “I wasn’t going to kill you.” She nudged him with the toe of her boot. “What’d you draw for?”

Banjo was dragging a sergeant major under the arms. “Here, help me with this one. His legs are folded up like an accordion.”

The Yankee moaned as they dragged him to a waiting bench under a chalked-in train schedule. “What are you going to do with me?”

“Nothin’,” Banjo replied. “One of your own will find you soon enough. We’ve got to get out of here.”

“I thought we held this side of the river.” The Yankee tried to straighten his leg, but couldn’t do it.

“That’s a matter of opinion.” Geneva looked up and saw billows of smoke curling skyward to the east. “We’ve been successful there, too.”

Banjo motioned for a trooper to give the Yank a light off his cigar.

Mars walked over. “Take what food you can out of the wagons over there, burn the rest, and then let’s go. It’s neck or nothing.”

After looting the wagons, Geneva and Banjo stopped at a small house. An older woman was contentedly sitting on her big, hanging swing. “Hellzapoppin!”

“Might we ask you a favor, ma’am?” Banjo removed his hat. “We put the Yanks with broken bones by the station office. Would you bring them water? I think it will be a time before their people return.”

She nodded. “I’ll do it.”

The column formed up and rode out of Tunstall’s Station. Stuart sent out scouting parties and a detachment to New Baltimore Store but the bulk of the column rode, stumbled, and fought to keep awake as they threaded down the dirt roads.

Geneva, because of her youth, didn’t get as sleepy as the others. Gallant was worn, but not blown out. Banjo curled his right leg around the pommel of his saddle and slept.

Mars bobbed to one side and then the other. Finally Geneva rode up next to him. Every time he’d fall over, she’d
hold out her arm to right him, then he’d mumble and doze off again.

The moon was on the other side of the sky when they stopped at St. Peter’s Church.

Mars dismounted, groggy but willing himself awake. “Boys, take a break. Water your mounts, wrap the reins over your shoulder when you’re done, then lie down for a spell.”

The men thankfully did as they were told. Geneva dropped on the ground lying on her back with her arms outstretched. She wrapped the reins around her wrist. She didn’t know how long she slept, but it was still dark when she was ordered to her feet. “Mount up!”

A flicker of gray glowed in the heat. The column turned down the lane to Sycamore Springs, the house of Lieutenant Jonas Christian. They passed the house and came to a blind ford. Forge Bridge was a mile away, but had been destroyed. Stuart figured that’s where the Federals would head. Stuart knew the Yankees were two hours behind his column, and this ford would get his men across unnoticed. By now the Yankees were aroused at Stuart’s encirclement of their entire force. They were determined to catch the twelve hundred Confederates and save face.

Mars, wide awake, walked up and down the banks of the raging Chickahominy.

“It’s never been this bad,” Christian mournfully said.

Rooney Lee stripped and swam across. Swimming back, the half-drowned man was hauled out of the gurgling water by John Easten Cooke. “What do you think of the situation, Colonel?”

Dripping wet, Rooney shook himself and began putting on his clothes. “Well, Captain, I think we are caught.”

“There’s got to be a way over!” Mars hunkered down. “What if I swam across with a rope and pulleys, and we rigged a tram?”

“We’d get the men over, but not the horses,” Rooney replied.

“Some of us could swim the horses over.”

“Too many of them. We’ve picked up over two hundred and fifty besides our own. And there’s mules, too.”

“Let’s walk downstream to see if we can find another ford,” Mars pressed.

Christian, knowing the land like his own palm, said, “Colonel Vickers, this is it.”

Stuart rode up from the rear of the column. He looked over the Chickahominy and twisted his beard. Banjo unconsciously imitated Stuart. “I am giving this river my bright regard.”

“I say we swim for it.” Geneva crossed her arms.

The general must have agreed with her because men that were strong swimmers pushed their horses into the water to swim with them, a few hanging on to their tails.

Mars motioned for a handful of his men to follow him. They chopped down trees hoping to make a rough corduroy bridge, but when the trunks splashed into the water, they washed away like toothpicks.

“Doswell, get this to General Lee.” Stuart handed Turner Doswell a message, and Doswell plunged into the torrent with his horse. The tangled banks on the other side made getting out difficult, but both man and horse managed. Turner shook off water, crawled into the saddle, and headed for Richmond, thirty-five miles distant.

Stuart asked General Robert E. Lee to create a diversion on the Charles Town Road. If Stuart got his men on the other side of the Chickahominy, he could keep General Hooker and the Federals on the other side of the swamp.

The sun began her majestic ascent while the troopers and their animals collapsed at Sycamore Springs. After trying everything, Stuart commanded the thirty-five men who’d gotten across the river to go downstream. The rest mounted up and headed for Forge Bridge where the Yankees were certain to appear on the road from Providence Forge to Charles City Courthouse.

Forge Bridge leapt the Chickahominy, deceptively narrow and deep at this place, to an island in the middle of the river. From the south side of the island was a second bridge leading to the safety of dry land. Both bridges had been destroyed, but there was a swampy ford off the island if one could get to it.

When they reached the bridge, only the abutments were standing. Videttes were posted, the artillery swung to face the road. An abandoned warehouse, a gift from the gods of chance, stood near the bridge. The men immediately ripped planks out of it. A skiff marooned on the bank was pushed into the water and used as an unsteady pontoon. The planks
were laid from the abutment to the skiff and then from the other side of the skiff to the far abutment. The first troopers crossed, fighting to keep their balance as they held their saddles on their right arms and with the left, held the horses’ reins, urging them across.

Geneva, working in the warehouse pulling off planks, said, “There’s another way. Let’s bring out the support beams and lay them from abutment to abutment, then nail the planks across. We’ll have a strong bridge, strong enough for the guns. What they’re doing out there now will take half the day. We’ll never get twelve hundred men and two heavy guns across in time.”

Mars, also yanking out planks, said, “If the beams reach, it might work. If they don’t …”